


12x09 Coda

by Piper_Halliwell1979



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 12x09 Coda, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coda, First Kiss, Holding Hands, Love Confessions, M/M, Mary Lives, Mary Ships It, Sam Ships It, Season/Series 12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 04:58:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9476678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piper_Halliwell1979/pseuds/Piper_Halliwell1979
Summary: After Castiel's emotional speech he needs to be alone to process his raw emotions. Dean follows him into the woods to talk and they finally let the unspoken be spoken.





	

“Cas…” Dean reached out for him. He pulled his sleeve free and walked deeper into the woods.

 

“No. I can't right now. I wish to have a few moments alone.”

 

Dean stubbornly stomped after him and caught up in a small clearing. He had a little deja vu moment. It felt just like purgatory. Cas being emotional and distant at the same time and trying to stay just out of his reach.

 

“You don’t get to say that and walk away. Talk to  _ me _ , Cas. Not this ‘all the Winchesters’ crap. You and me. You killed the new Death for me. Don't I get to say something back?”

 

“And what, pray tell would that be?” Cas spun around. Fresh tears glistened on his cheeks. “How could you make a decision like that without talking to me first? Well fuck you, Dean. I was going to say the same thing to you!” His nostrils flared. He was just raw nerves.

 

Dean lowered his head. “Okay. I deserve that.”

 

“You don’t get to call me a Winchester and leave me out of a decision that affects my whole family. It was a dick move. I could have lost you again. Or Sam. He is my brother, Dean. Just as much as yours.”  His shoulders slumped. Some of the fire was leaving his voice and the next wave of emotion was ebbing.

 

Dean rushed into him and held him tight, squeezing their chests together. Cas broke and sobbed into his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Cas. You are. You  _ are  _ a Winchester. Billie could have taken you, too. It was gonna be me. I was going to let Sammy have Mom. And they’d be okay because they’d have you.”

 

Cas clung to Dean. He had a decision to make. It was probably the wrong one but he and Dean had more marks in that column than anyone. “You still don't get it. When I said I could go with you? I didn't want to live in a world without you in it. There is no me without you. I couldn't even hunt a vampire without you. Mary had to finish the hunt.”

 

“Cas, please...don't say it-”

 

“-I'm in love with you, Dean.”

 

Dean didn't push him away but he also didn't reply. It was out. The words they had danced around for years hung in the night air between them. There was no more plausible deniability. Cas didn't say he needed him. He didn't say Dean was his brother. He said he was in love. Real...actual...love. 

 

He just kept staring into those desperate blue eyes. The moon was catching the prisms of tears ready to fall again. For an angel he had aged so much since he’d defied heaven to be a Winchester. Dean mapped every line and crease of Cas’ face. He counted the cracks in his perpetually chapped lips. He noticed a few grey hairs he’d probably been the cause of.

 

“We can't do this, Cas. It ends bad a hundred different ways.”

 

“Since when has that stopped you from trying to beat the odds?”

 

_ Oh for Chuck's sake.  _ “You’re right.” Dean cupped Cas’ face with both hands and brought their lips together. 

 

Cas eagerly kissed him back. There was a hunger there, just below the tenderness of a lover’s first kiss. He ran his hands through Dean's hair and traced his tongue across Dean's bottom lip. The hunter opened to him and Cas found himself backed into a tree at the edge of the clearing.

 

“I love you, you son of bitch. You had to make me say it.” Dean panted between kisses. He let himself feel the warmth of Castiel's body pressed against his, the pressure points each fingertip made with his body.

 

“Just don't take it back, Dean. It has to be harder to walk away from each other from now on. We can't keep sacrificing ourselves because we don't think we matter. You matter to me and that has to be enough.”

 

“It is, angel. I could have let Billie take me in the prison and let Sam go but I had to see you one more time. I had to see you.”

 

***

 

“He’s in love with Dean, isn't he?” Mary asked Sam as they leaned against her car and waited.

 

“Pretty sure it's a two-way street, Mom. He called Cas the second he could. He wanted out so he could say goodbye to him.”

 

“He was going to sacrifice himself? It was him. He was going with her.” She let the thought sink in. 

 

“He said it was because he had memories of you, four years of having a mother. He said he wanted me to know what that felt like.”

 

“And Castiel wouldn't let him go.”

 

Sam smiled. “They never let each other go. Ever since Cas pulled him from hell...no matter what came between them they always came back to each other. Even death can't keep them apart.”

 

“Do they know that? Do they know they love each other?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

Mary shifted uncomfortably. “Does Dean...does he not think it's okay to love Castiel? I mean...another man?”

 

Sam wasn't sure what the right answer was. “There was this girl, her name was Charlie. He loved her with everything he had. He’d die for her but she wound up dying for him, to save him. She was gay. That stuff doesn't matter to him, to us. Never has. It's the love part. He loses everyone he’s ever let in like that. I think losing Cas terrifies him more than loving him.”

 

Mary stood quietly. Dean was such a tortured soul. If it wasn't for her, he’d never have lived a life that made him that way. She blamed herself for all her sons’ unhappiness. If there was anything to redeem herself for it was that. “They deserve to be happy.”

 

***

 

Dean and Cas emerged from the woods. They no longer reeked of tension. Sam took it as a sign that they worked something out enough that they could go home. He waited for Dean to choose a door to know if he’d be riding shotgun again or if Dean needed some space from Cas. He sighed in relief when they chose the back seat again.

 

Sam let himself drift off as his mother barreled down the two lane back highway towards Kansas. He didn't see Dean reach for Cas’ hand and weave their fingers together in the space between them on the bench seat.


End file.
